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Saturday, November 1, 2008

Jim Gilmore's Friday visit to Staunton ... a great success!

FRIDAY ... JIM GILMORE ... 2-3 pm

So said the sandwich board on the sidewalk in front of Shenandoah Pizza on Beverley Street in historic downtown Staunton.

An overflow crowd packed the gourmet pizza restaurant Friday afternoon to hear from Jim Gilmore who is running for the U.S. Senate, and to munch on complimentary pizza from the owners. He addressed the crowd and answered questions for the better part of an hour, then greeted everyone in the restaurant before heading out the door to visit other shops.

Gov. Gilmore crossed the street to visit the Pampered Palate on Beverley Street, speaking to customers and even popping his head in the kitchen to say hello to the kitchen and wait staff. Next he went to Zelma's Vintage Clothing, Grandma's Bait, Seventeen East Beverley Antiques, and greeted folks up and down Beverley Street including a number of Mary Baldwin College students.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Jim Gilmore to campaign in Staunton Friday afternoon

Jim Gilmore, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, will be in Staunton Friday afternoon, October 31, at 2:00 p.m. at Shenandoah Pizza in historic downtown. Come on out and talk with the Governor about his issues and you will be convinced he is the best candidate to protect this country and serve our state.

McDonnell: "Vote Gilmore for national security"

Dear Virginia Voter:

Although America’s national security isn’t the number one issue in the headlines right now, it is a topic paramount to the future of our children and grandchildren. Who we elect to the United States Senate from Virginia is going to help determine which direction our nation takes to defend America’s national interests around the world and at home.

Because of his experience and his principles, I strongly recommend Jim Gilmore for the United States Senate. Jim and I are both Army Veterans, and as you can imagine, I have a deep appreciation for the service of the men and women of our armed forces. Jim Gilmore volunteered for the U.S. Army and played an important role in counter-intelligence for the U.S. Army, safeguarding the security of American bases in Europe.

As you may know, Congress chose Virginia’s Jim Gilmore to chair a national commission charged with making recommendations on methods to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks on the United States. The Gilmore Commission warned in 1999 and in 2000 that America was facing a possible terrorist attack.

After 9/11 Congress adopted 146 of the Gilmore Commission’s 164 recommendations. Jim Gilmore has the experience in homeland security I know must be possessed by Virginia’s next United States Senator.

Virginia and our nation must elect Jim Gilmore to the U.S. Senate. Join me in the fight to elect JIM GILMORE as our next U.S. SENATOR.

With less than a week to go you can help in this critical effort with your contribution...no matter how large or how small...by clicking the CONTRIBUTION link below.

Also remember to VOTE on TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4th for JIM GILMORE FOR SENATE.

Mr. Gilmore favors making permanent the federal tax cuts enacted by Congress in 2001 and 2003. Mr. Warner, by contrast, has suggested repealing tax cuts on persons whose family income exceeds $250,000 a year.

. . .

Mr. Gilmore favors offshore oil drilling in Alaska and off the Atlantic Coast. Mr. Warner opposes drilling in Alaska and says more study is needed before drilling is permitted off the Atlantic Coast. Mr. Gilmore opposes and Mr. Warner favors the Orwellian-titled Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it much easier for labor unions to coerce workers into joining.

As governor, Mr. Gilmore is best known for his work to repeal the oppressive car tax. Mr. Warner's major political achievement as governor was his success in pushing a $1.4 billion tax increase through the General Assembly in 2004. Only weeks after passage of the tax increase (which Mr. Warner asserted was essential to balance the budget), state officials acknowledged that Virginia was actually running a budget surplus. (In other words, Mr. Warner's dire warnings of imminent fiscal collapse had been proven false.)

It's easy to see why - as the Times put it - "Mr. Gilmore would be the superior choice."

Monday, October 27, 2008

Waynesboro NV endorsed Jim Gilmore for Senate

~ News Virginian gets it when comparing the two candidates~

Willing to look beneath the superficial surface to actually examine Mark Warner ... and bucking the trend that seems to prevail throughout most of Virginia's media who appear to think this is the Miss Congeniality contest instead of a senatorial race ... the Waynesboro News Virginian today endorsedJim Gilmore for Senatewith a well thought-out editorial about Gov. Gilmore's accomplishments and Mark Warner's lack of them.

The very first paragraph of the editorial hit the nail on the head:

Once the practice of statesmen, politics has evolved into an art of all things banal — schmoozing principal among them. On this count, as they have been in the polls since the race began, Senate candidates and former governors Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore are separated by a chasm. Warner represents a twist on the “Cheers” TV show theme – he knows everybody’s name. Gilmore is a politician with a comic’s capacity to offend, squashing toes in the natural manner in which most people breathe, many of the stinging digits found in his own party.

Governor Jim Gilmore is a leader. Leaders have targets on their backs ... they take arrows. Leaders do the right thing despite the critics ... and that is Jim Gilmore.

The News Virginian continued:

As a result, Warner, who made a mint in telecommunications, built a mammoth war chest while Gilmore scraped for relative pennies of support. Warner ascended in his party, winning a keynote speaking spot at the Democratic National Convention, while Gilmore fished for a base despite a relatively strong conservative record.

Despite receiving the Republican Party's nod at a hard-fought convention battle in May and despite receiving the endorsement of the Party establishment, the Gilmore campaign has had an uphill battle going into the war against Mark Warner, a battle that no one else was willing to wage but that the fighter Jim Gilmore was willing to take on. Even the man whose seat he is battling for, Republican Sen. John Warner, has not endorsed him and as recently as two weeks ago said he was undecided on which man he would vote for.

For the reason alone that he was willing to take on the Democrat in the "we-love-Mark Warner" media atmosphere, Jim Gilmore deserves accolades.

Gilmore, the ever-move-forward warrior who headed a commission on terrorism before 9/11 ... who was Governor of Virginia when we were hit on 9/11 ... who fought to get into UVA Law School after serving in Army intelligence as a young man ... the hard-hitting prosecutor from Henrico County ... has always been more concerned about getting the job done than the finer art of communication, something that has been misconstrued over the years into whatever the recipient perceived -- arrogance, disdain, whatever. But Gilmore got the job done.

There are more than a few people for whom Gilmore cares little, and Warner hovers somewhere at the top of the list. Warner in 2002 followed Gilmore as governor and made quick work of depicting his predecessor as an irresponsible spender who left the budget in shambles. Gilmore touted a plan to eliminate the car tax, and wound up slashing it by 70 percent. But Warner charged Gilmore shortchanged the budget in the process, prompting a record $1.4 billion tax increase. It was later revealed that there was surplus that fiscal year and the state revenues were increasing before the tax increase.

Nevertheless, Gilmore’s campaign backside still wears the brand Warner applied, of a failed governor whose policies swamped the budget and forced his successor to stick it to Virginians. In fact, Gilmore’s spending record as governor bears a foul aroma. The state operating budget swelled by a third during his stay in Richmond. Republicans who cut taxes while failing to cut spending do taxpayers and conservatives a disservice.

Mark Warner, who became a rock star of the Democrat Party through the help of some Republican electeds in the Commonwealth's General Assembly when they backed his record $1.2 billion tax increase, giving him the votes needed to pass the largest tax increase in Virginia history (leaving the impression nationwide that Warner was a bipartisan politician who could work with both sides of the aisle), attained a Teflon coating as far as the media were concerned. Throw out the facts about Warner's lack of leadership and watch them slide off as an adoring media look the other way. Warner became the master of spin as noted by the NV:

Still, Warner masters another modern political art, that of unction. Not only did he slip responsibility for his tax increase by wrongly strapping it like a string of dynamite to Gilmore, he also eluded for years accountability for his 1994 rant against gun advocates, pro-lifers and home schoolers. Gilmore achieved rare success when he released an audio recording of Warner’s comments that forced the Democrat to finally concede them as his own after repeated denials.

Those comments against home schoolers hit me particularly hard in 2001 when Warner was running for governor. As a home schooling parent and leader in the local home school community, I wrote a letter to the Staunton News Leader to expose the comments, a letter that was blocked by then-Opinions Editor Dennis Neal (who has since left the newspaper) who said he had no collaboration or proof of it even though I offered up the statement, and he ignored it when I noted he did not normally "fact-check" other letters to the editor. Irregardless, my letter never saw the light of day and every time I mentioned his censorship in the years following, he became defensive.

Indeed, Mark Warner denied making such a statement but was proven to have lied when the Gilmore campaign produced audio of the remarks. What Warner said not only bashed home schoolers but also National Rifle Association members, the Christian Coalition, pro-life proponents -- people he found "threatening to what it means to be an American."

His remarks were:

"One of the things you are going to see is a coalition that is just about completely taken over the Republican Party in this state and if they have their way it's going to take over state government. It is made up of the Christian Coalition, but not just them. It is made up of the right-to-lifers, but not just them. It's made up of the NRA, but not just them. It is made up of the home schoolers, but not just them. It's made up of a whole coalition of people that have all sorts of differing views that I think most of us in this room would find threatening to what it means to be an American." Mark Warner, May 1994

Caught with audio proof, Warner lamely admitted saying those things but added that he had "learned a lot since then." Most in the media ignored that he lied about making the comments. The NV once again got it:

His strong Second Amendment record will allay potential Warner opponents among the ranks of the National Rifle Association, but there’s little to appease abortion foes and home schoolers, except for the fact that a relative of Warner’s home schools. What matters more is whether Warner can be taken at his word when he says, for example, that he opposes a provision in the Employee Freedom of Choice Act that would end secret ballots in union elections. As written, that law – the concept of which Warner favors – would load unions with power and threaten the stability of small businesses across the land.

Similarly, Warner touts as feasible the pipe dream popularly known among Democrats as the “renewable revolution,” a plan to shift America from reliance on fossil fuels to renewables. Never mind that renewables account for only 7 percent of the world’s energy output and that solar and wind power, to which he frequently refers, require vast expanses of land, in the fashion of ethanol, the fallacy of which leftists are discovering. Warner calls for an all-inclusive energy plan, including natural gas and nuclear energy, and insists that Gilmore is focused almost exclusively on drilling, a charge the Republican rejects.

Like presidential nominee John McCain but with a stronger conservative record, Gilmore is less than an ideal foe for Warner. But his deficiencies are dwarfed by Warner’s, no matter how carefully concealed the latter’s might be. As a result, Gilmore is our choice for the U.S. Senate.

The Waynesboro News Virginian, that small hometown newspaper in the central Shenandoah Valley, did more homework than most of the big newspapers throughout the land. They actually took the time to examine the records and accomplishments of the two senatorial candidates ... and whenever that happens, Jim Gilmore comes out on top every time. The NV understands this is not a popularity contest and that the very safety and future of our country is at stake in these volatile, terrorism-filled times.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Jim Gilmore signs Energy Freedom pledge

Affirming His Support for Increased Domestic Energy Production

Former Gov. Jim Gilmore, candidate for the Virginia U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Senator John Warner, today signed the "Energy Freedom Pledge." Affirming if elected to the U.S. Senate, his commitment to "oppose any and all attempts to impose another national ban on drilling for oil and natural gas energy resources off our nation's shores or on oil shale extraction" in the United States. By signing the pledge, Gov. Gilmore also affirmed to "support efforts to increase domestic energy production which will provide for American's future energy needs and make the U.S. less dependent on foreign sources of energy".

"During these tough economic times, never has America's need to tap into its vast resources of oil and natural gas been clearer," said Gilmore. "Doing so would not only set the course for energy independence, but would create thousands of jobs right here in the U.S and in Virginia."

"Virginia is an energy state, with our vast resources of coal in Southwest Virginia, and oil and natural gas off our shores, as U.S. Senator, I will ensure Virginia plays a primary role towards American energy independence," added Gilmore.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

How Warner's 1994 comments and his support for the bailout are related

I was considering cross-posting my comments about Mark Warner's 1994 slam against home-schoolers and right-to-lifers, but as the first half of said post included a rehash of what SWAC Girl already cross-posted, I figured I should just get to the point.

That point is this; you may think Warner's little rant is unrelated to today's pressing issues, but if so, you'd be wrong. It's revealing for this reason (an excerpt from my RWL post):

The Dem nominee is the poster-boy for the “limousine liberal” (as Bob Novak calls them), wealthy politicos who vote for the Democrats on social or foreign policy issues, but mainly driven by an elitist snobbery that has no use for ordinary Virginians or what they think.

Until this year, “limousine liberals” did most of their policy damage on cultural or security issues, but the events of the past month have revealed something new: their elitism has become part and parcel of the herd mentality at the top that led to mass hysteria over the financial markets.

The Mark Warner of 1994 was an out-of-touch elitist who was slamming ordinary Virginia voters in partisan speeches. The Mark Warner of 2008 is still out of touch, but he is now part of an elite gone mad on financial issues.

Will the Mark Warner of 2009 be in a position where his weakness for hysteria can do real damage? Or will Virginians recognize the danger in time go with the saferpair of hands - namely Jim Gilmore’s?